Naruto of the Middle Path
by MadDiction
Summary: What happens when Naruto is not the jinchuuriki and he's not the hyperactive blond we know so well? AU'ish, neutral Naruto. Reviews welcome.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Naruto. There, I said it.

Many people believe jinchuurikis to become evil or cruel because they take on the traits of the demon within them. Others believe that the lack of love and companions during childhood produces uncaring and uncompassionate killers later. And some suffice it to be a simple rule that all jinchuurikis are evil. But every rule has an exception.

The Naruto Uzumaki you all know and love (or hate) grew up to be loving and passionate for his cause. But how can that be? I have a potential explanation. Perhaps Gaara and other jinchuurikis were evil because they would otherwise have been kind; the lack of love and the absence of safety from foes, even within their village, forced them to become evil. Naruto in this fic is not the jinchuuriki. His mother did not go into premature labor, he was born a couple weeks after the kyuubi attack, but his mother died soon afterwards of grief over the loss of her husband. Naruto's heritage was still kept a secret to protect him from enemies, but he could now have companions within the village because he was not the container of the Kyuubi. He was also fairly safe; he was an orphan, but no one had anything against him.

So when an evil child has the positive influence of companionship, and the neutral influence of a moderately safe environment, you get a neutral child.

Basically, other Jinchuuriki were good little children turned bad, and Naruto was an evil little child who was made good. In my AU fic, he is neutral because he is not the jinchuuriki.

Naruto Uzumaki looked towards the Ninja Academy where he was to spend the next four years training to become a ninja. At that thought, a frown appeared on his face, but it was quickly replaced by an even, neutral, face. That was him; calm, even, and neutral.

From the moment he stepped into the classroom, he was ignored. After all, there was nothing truly unique about him, and though most people had seen him around town, he had never really talked to any of these ninja hopefuls. Besides, he was wearing some of the most normal garb imaginable, a plain navy shirt and loose navy pants, and his blonde hair lay loosely around his head, though it spiked in clumps behind his head.

He slipped into a seat next to the wall. To his left was Shikamaru Nara, a boy whom Naruto knew to be a genius. Next to Shikamaru was Choji Akimichi, a boy whom Naruto really knew little about. He turned to continue looking at the class, and what he saw did not inspire much confidence in his fellow classmates. There was a blushing Hyuuga, and while it was a rare sight to witness a Hyuuga blushing, he did not think much of the girl. There were some girls with strange hair colors and a couple of odd looking guys.

The majority of the classroom was split into two camps. The boys sat on one side, and Sasuke sat on the opposite side with all of his fangirls. The guy (loosely) was practically coated in fangirls. Naruto almost smirked at this; it was odd that the gayest male in the class had the most female admirers. But Naruto eventually became bored and turned back to the front of the class. It was time to learn, a thought which encouraged him to put his face down into his desks. The next four years would be a total waste.

Then, Umino Iruka barged into the classroom.

"Hello 'ninja-to-be's! I'm Iruka, I'll be your instructor for the next four years as you strive to become a ninja! Now, I'm sure you want to learn how to do all the cool stuff that ninjas do, but we will have to get to that later. For now, you must first learn the basics!"

Naruto groaned, before quickly snapping his head up and pretending to pay attention. There was no reason to respond that way; he just had to calm down. He could not afford any extra attention being held on him. Fortunately, Iruka's gaze was drawn towards the sleeping Shikimaru rather than the groaning Naruto.

"I made a wise seating choice after all," Naruto thought.

Iruka then began his lesson. The topic? The origin of Konoha and why it was such a great village. This time Naruto kept his groan internal.

6 hours later

Naruto began his trek home. He was an orphan, but he lived in the middle-class area of the city, which was definitely where Naruto liked to be. As he walked home, he bumped into a small boy with whisker marks adorning his face. The boy quickly scurried to the side of the street before running off. Naruto did not bother to comfort the boy that he had realized a while before was the Kyuubi jinchuuriki; it wasn't his problem.

As Naruto stepped into his apartment and he began to make some food, he thought back to his school day. Iruka had really pushed the "Konoha rocks" message, and had spent 3 hours discussing the 'Will of Fire'. Naruto simply didn't get it. Konoha may have been a bit different than other villages, but it was still just a village. It had powerful kages, but hey, so did other villages. It wasn't that Naruto disliked Konoha, it was just that he wasn't attached. He knew that these gullible children would have kissed the tsuchikage's ass if they had grown up in Iwa.

Naruto thought about the day that everything changed for him. He was 6 and he had gone to the library to read more (he loved reading) when he read a book on ninja and their purpose. It talked about the ranks of ANBU and what a ninja's purpose is. After reading it, Naruto tried to observe these 'jutsu' that he had read about in action. Naruto was immediately rather fascinated; could anyone with enough chakra use these miraculous jutsu?

Naruto did his research. He would have liked to jump into the ninja profession headfirst, but that was not how he did things. He wanted to be a ninja to become strong; so that he could exert his will on others rather than having others' will forced on him. He had read that you needed chakra to perform these jutsu. So Naruto had to find a way to test his chakra level. He had sat down and meditated for a long time, just like a simple book on ninja abilities had told him to, when he had unleashed a large burst of chakra. He knew that such a quantity of chakra was unusual for an untrained pre-genin; if he had to wager, he would guess it was at low-chuunin level. Unfortunately, he had to guess. He had no way to test his strength, to see just how strong he really was. So, he decided that if it was going to be a mystery to him, it would be a mystery to others.

Naruto knew that most great ninja lost battles because their opponent knew the extent of that ninja's abilities. After all, once you were famous, your skills were readily available for all to see. To avoid this, Naruto knew that he had to hide his strength. He learned how to conceal his chakra. He practiced so often, in fact, that he could lower his chakra level to seemingly nothing. He also tested it after exercising vigorously; he had to make sure that he did not evoke the suspicions of anyone around him, lest his cover be blown. So he trained only where no one could see him, kept his chakra levels to a normal level, and kept his apparent fitness at an average level.

Once Naruto had thought about it, he realized that pretending to suck would only hurt him later. Not only would being weak force his instructors to take a special interest in him to help him improve, but then even the slightest slip-up (though in this case that would involve revealing that he did have some skill) would immediately be noticed by a teacher. Instead, average was the perfect place to be. Average students didn't need extra help. As an average student, Naruto, in theory, would be able to survive until he became a jounin (or at least chuunin) without revealing his true skill. Most of all, a gleam of genius by an average student would be quickly tallied up to luck, as Naruto quickly realized.

Once he realized that he should become average in skill, he chose to become average in everything else that he could as well. Average appearance, average attitude, calm and level voice and demeanor, and while Naruto would converse when asked a question, he did not act too social, which helped in preventing him from accidentally revealing any skills.

What Naruto next realized was that while he was concerned about hiding his skills, he needed to develop some. So he exercised rigorously and read about what jutsu he could. He found a chakra control exercise and he practiced his control constantly, so that he could both control his chakra perfectly, and could pretend that he could not control his chakra well at all. It was all part of the plan…..

And he knew that the plan would pay off. It HAD to pay off.

Now then, on to AN. I NEED a beta. I am new to this site and don't know where else to ask. The beta must do a couple things. 1: Keep me going in a straight line. I'll send you my rough drafts, stop me when I'm going waaaaaay out there. 2: Fill in the Japanese script. I don't have time to learn Japanese, so filling in the jutsu/exclamation names with their Japanese translations would be a huge help. 3: Give me some ideas. Sometimes I'll run dry, help me out here! And finally, 4: Help me out with the normal Naruto story information. I can't read every manga, let me know if I mess up on some parts here and there. It is AU, but only insofar as what Naruto can realistically change.

Pairings will be decided on review at some later point. I will update fairly regularly, assuming the view total doesn't stop at 1 or something. Please review my premise and inform me if you have some CONSTRUCTIVE advice. Also, many of the interchangeable variables within this story will be determined by review. Chakra affinity and what jutsus he learns/where he goes will be determined by reviews at the appropriate time. You can think of this as being a make-your-own-adventure book, but with some flexible guidelines. You get to determine how Naruto gets there, I decide how it'll work out for him and what his next moves can be. Naruto will be strong, but even he hasn't been able to test his abilities, so he has no idea how strong he really is. That will probably be a theme. I may clean up chapter 1 later when the rest of the story becomes more solid/people tell me what they need clarified. This story will end up being epic length, with enough support.


	2. Discovered! Or?

1A/N: Review, please, and I need a beta! See end A/N for more.

Disclaimer:

I don't own Naruto

Naruto continued his laps around the forest near the southeastern edge of Konoha. He was comfortable in knowing that he had trained his senses well enough to know when most ninja were nearing. Only those ninja that were trying to hide would be able to sneak up on him, and Naruto knew that if a high level ninja wanted to find him, then he would be found.

Right now was one of Naruto's physical training sessions. He had long ago requested an 'advance' in his allowance from the Hokage's assistant (the Hokage only met with him in emergencies), and the request had gone through. It had been under the pretext of new clothes and books, but he had really gone and bought some weights. They were nothing fancy; just a few 20-30 pound weights that looked like bracelets and a 40 pound vest. He had one on each arm and one on each leg. He had long ago realized that while the arm ones were the hardest to continue lifting, even while he was running, they were also the hardest for him to train. His legs were very strong (or so he thought), but Naruto thought that to throw a punch he would need tons more arm strength.

Unfortunately, taijutsu was not something easily learned through a book, and the Academy training sessions were terrible. Either the teachers were focusing only on the high-level taijutsu practitioners, where Naruto did not (or at least, he didn't think he wanted) to be at, or they were helping the fangirls along, which meant in class Naruto trained at the level of a fangirl. Needless to say, Naruto's taijutsu was not too good.

Then again, Naruto hardly cared. He was focusing as hard as he could on his ninjutsu. He now knew the basic three; henge, kawirimi, and bunshin. He had practiced his chakra control until the smoke he left was negligible. He had also practiced them without handseals, but he had found this rendered them far less effective. Instead, he tried to make his hand so quick with the seals that no one would be able to take advantage of the time spent focusing his chakra. He could do almost 2 handseals per second, and while he knew that he would need to be faster, he knew no jutsu requiring enough handseals for that to be a problem.

In addition, he had noticed something not really touched upon in the book, which he could only assume had been too obvious to need to be mentioned. His chakra capacity expanded nearly exponentially with his combined knowledge and stamina. Unfortunately, he still had no idea how to go about testing his levels.

Naruto had been avoiding a prominent problem. He would eventually need to get an instructor. Naruto simply didn't know who to ask. It had to be someone who was not in the village often, so that they would not be able to observe him often enough to see what he was hiding, or make a fuss about it. But as far as Naruto knew, only high level ninja went out for extended periods of time, and they would never teach Naruto, especially while he was pretending to be an average academy student. Because really, academy students would usually be too weak to learn even a single high level jutsu, nevertheless to warrant testing of chakra level or affinity. Besides, Naruto had read somewhere that you had to be at least 12 before your chakra affinity was greater than 90 percent certain. Naruto was planning on figuring out why that was later. Perhaps his chakra affinity was currently malleable enough to be altered to his choosing! If so, he had better start soon. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Naruto decided to start some stance exercises. He began going through some poses he saw in a book; it may not have been good taijutsu training, but it was better than nothing.

Suddenly, Naruto felt a chakra presence on the verge of his little training area, and he immediately leapt out of the sheltered wood and ran towards a Konoha street, hoping that whoever it was had not seen him.

Kakashi had just been walking along with Kurenai on the street. She was busy yelling on about all the Icha Icha he read; Kakashi could care less, he's heard it all before.

"…..And another thing, what if some poor impressionable child saw it? What would they think when the prodigious Kakashi is walking down the street shamelessly reading porn? And how do you think it makes women feel….." Kurenai ranted.

Kakashi just sighed. This would be…. troublesome.

Kurenai suddenly jerked upright and said, "Kakashi; do you feel that?"

Kakashi sensed around him, and surely enough, there was a rather formidable presence of chakra just to their left, in a wooded area.*1

"Shall we check it out?" Kakashi asked.

"Yeah," Kurenai said. It was not so much the fact that there was someone using chakra in Konoha that bothered them, but that a ninja with high-Chuunin/low Jounin chakra level was training so far out of view so early. They were just curious. As they neared the location of the chakra source, they could see only blonde hair and some blue clothes, shapes were hard to make out through the trees. As Kurenai took one more step forward, the figure leaped away from the clearing rapidly and into the streets.

As Kurenai prepared to lunge forward, Kakashi help her back.

"It's not worth it, Kurenai. Even if you could catch him*2, he clearly does not want to be seen and you'd only make him upset. Besides, he clearly has no evil intentions; he was just training." Kakashi reasoned.

"Yeah, but did you recognize him? I think I know most Chuunin with that kind of chakra…" said Kurenai as she put her hand to her chin thinking.

"Hey, don't stress about it. I'm sure we'll see him around town."

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!!!!" Naruto yelled at himself. He had slipped up. All this time he had spent hiding his skill, and he had lost focus. He had kept his chakra under wraps, barely revealing half, he thought, but regardless, his inattentiveness had let a couple ninja get too close. Naruto figured they must have been Jounin. Even when he was not fully focused, he still would've sensed anyone lower. Now Naruto would be forced to take his precautions. He'd have to buy new clothes, find a new place to train……..

Naruto let the thought trail off there. He realized that he had one more option. He needed a teacher… and these people had seen him training… and they were Jounin. He wondered if he could find a way to get one of them to train him. He had heard only the name of one, Kurenai. He would observe this Kurenai and see if she could be trusted. Perhaps he could also learn whom she had been with.

As Naruto was walking down the road to a clothing store, he noticed many of his classmates walking down the street. Naruto put on his calm façade and prepared to greet them.

"Hello Shikamaru" Naruto said.

"Hey…. Naruto" Shikamaru said, clearly struggling to remember the name. Surprisingly, Naruto smiled at this, unperturbed.

"Hey Shikimaru. Where have you all been?" Naruto asked while gesturing to the party behind Shikimaru.

"We just went out to eat and we were going to head to a movie. Do you want to… er… come?" Shikimaru asked awkwardly. It was clear to Naruto that of the group behind him Shikimaru was not the leader, snd was not comfortable with inviting more people into the group. No one else seemed to care either way.

"Nah, see ya around!" Naruto said while continuing on his way.

Shikimaru couldn't rationalize Naruto's behavior. He responded totally unlike how Shikimaru would expect. Shikimaru had actually remembered Naruto's name, but had been thinking about something else. Naruto seemed to be made even more happy that his name had been forgotten! Then he seemed to frown when invited to hang out with his classmates. Just as he was about to realize something….

"Hey, Shikimaru, would you mind tuning back in to Planet Earth and putting your lazy butt in traction?" Ino yelled while practically choking Sasuke.

"Troublesome…" Shikimaru thought as he allowed the thought to drift away.

Naruto spied his target coming out of a dango shop. He saw that she was talking to a female friend, whom he was reasonably certain was not the person she had been with before. Naruto believer her name was Anko. Sadly, Naruto felt that this woman would be a wholly inappropriate teacher for him. She was largely into genjutsu, and as a newly instated Jounin she would be quick to report to the Hokage any student with potential. She was out… it was sad because she was kind of pretty, and really was a good fighter…

Naruto shook his head. He was on a 'mission' of a kind, so he had to keep his head on the mission. Suddenly the two girls spotted someone and made a beeline for that person. Naruto saw that it was a gray haired man who wore a mask that covered half of his face, and he was reading an Icha Icha magazine… who was it that Naruto had heard that read those magazines? He had heard a rumor that it was both the Hokage and…. Hatake Kakashi! Of course, he recognized it now. And from the way the three were talking, Naruto felt reasonably certain that Kakashi had been the one to see him. Suddenly….

Yamato was upset. Not about being a jinchuuriki for the Kyuubi. Nay, he had long ago accepted his fate in that regard. It was the glares. He hated the glares people sent him. It just made him so mad! In his frustration, he took a pebble and sent it over a few buildings.

Naruto's hand reflexively shot up to catch the speeding pebble that may have otherwise brained him. He recoiled in surprise, only to trip over backwards and lose his concentration. Suddenly, he felt glares from all the ninja in the street towards his prone figure.

"What the hell was that? Just my damn luck!" Naruto cursed internally as he turned away from the ninjas and jumped away, careful not to expose any defining features. Now he was glad that he had bought new clothes, but then he groaned. He was going to have to buy another pair! His wallet was taking a huge hit for the sake of secrecy.

Kakashi had been talking to the two annoyed, and rather pretty, girls when he felt something whiz by. Probably a rock. A second later he felt an enormous chakra spike. This was the size of a high Jounin! It was incredible! He turned along with the girls to see a young looking man wearing all black holding a rock and looking pissed. He immediately rose and bounded away, but not before Kakashi noticed that his chakra levels had been reduced to almost nothing; a civilian at best. Kakashi thought about it, and then decided to bound after the man. The blond hair looked familiar.

Kurenai swore that that chakra felt familiar. It was the same as the ninja's in the clearing, there was just much, much, much more of it! The amount of chakra was almost stifling. Then it got reduced to nothing and she watched as a blond haired figure ran away. She turned to Kakashi, only to find that he had already given chase.

"What the fuck was that?" Anko demanded, having regained her voice after being so surprised.

"Not a clue" Kurenai responded, though now she was curious.

Naruto stopped near a tree, sure that he had gotten away. He relaxed next to it. He had run almost 15 minutes at full sprint with all of his weights on, and he was pretty tired. He closed his eyes before he felt a pressure around his arms, and then his entire torso. He opened his eyes, only to see a smiling eye looking at him, and to see a wire binding him to the tree.

"Well hello there! Who are you?" Kakashi asked.

'I've got to remain calm… what should I do? He may instruct me, or he may rat me out! Hmmmm… I can't do this. I can't hide my power from these higher-ups. But maybe I don't have to… screw the plan!' Naruto thought, his patience for the plan wearing thin. He had planned on waiting until he hit Jounin level, then surprising everyone around him with a show of heroism and getting a quick promotion, and possibly securing him a higher position than he would have by steadily climbing the ranks. But he realized now that this was stupid; he would never be able to pull it off. It was funny how when you blindly followed something for years, you lost sight of how ridiculous it truly was. He felt a glimpse of his alternate reality self thinking of a pink haired girl and realizing the same thing. Huh.... that was strange, Naruto thought.

"Hello Kakashi! You caught up to me I see! However, I'm clearly young and weak and I've done nothing wrong, so if you'd just let me go…." Naruto half-heartedly pleaded.

"No way… what's your name? I think I've seen you in the academy before…" Kakashi thought.

"Giving up, Naruto admitted "Yeah, my name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm an academy student."

Kakashi's eye shot up in surprise. "No way… Did you make that chakra spike?" Kakashi asked, unbelieving that an academy student created that much power.

"Heh, yeah, I lost focus," Naruto admitted with a grin.

'Amazing,' Kakashi thought. 'A kid with this much power… Perhaps I should tell the Hokage and ask if he can get moved up early? Or perhaps if he can get tutored…'

"How much training do you have?" Kakashi asked.

"None, really" the boy responded.

'No, I can't let a prodigy this HUGE go… and that he could hide it speaks even more to his power. Perhaps I should…' Kakashi considered.

"Hey, what do you know how to do?" Kakashi asked.

"Well…." Naruto faltered, "I know the basic three without handseals, and some chakra exercises I read about in a book, like water walking and tree walking."

'So little? Then it couldn't hurt… and it will make for a helluva surprise later' Kakashi thought.

"So, you hide your true talents because… nevermind, I don't care. Here, kid, I think you have some potential, and I'd hate for you to become weak due to the academy so… I'll let you keep up whatever ruse you're doing, and I'll help you a bit with your training too" Kakashi said.

'This could not have gone better', Naruto thought. 'I get to continue to hide, which, even if my plan is… well, just plain stupid, could still provide some benefits later, and I get some training! Perhaps he can finally tell me how strong I am!'

"Sounds good! Now, will you untie me?" Naruto joked.

"Sure… OK, meet me tomorrow at training ground 24, maybe around 3:00. I'll try to get to know where you're at then. If you need directions, just ask a ninja, they'll know" Kakashi said before disappearing.

Naruto was overjoyed. He would get training, at last. Friends, who needs them, allies, who cares? But power, power was important. Nothing to kill over, but still important….."

2A/N: The story is starting to form here. Naruto's training will up, along with action and social interaction. First 4-5 chapters will probably be setup for the entire rest of the story, his future and whatnot. I still need a beta, but , equally importantly, I need reviews! There are a couple of review polls that will last a few chapters, such as

Main elemental affinity/secondary affinity

Senseis(s)

Pairing(s) (for anyone, not just Naruto)

1* While training, Naruto unconsciously lets some of his chakra leak out. The fact that he's lost in thought probably exacerbates this problem.

2* Naruto does not realize it, but he is pretty fast. Also, Kakashi is lazy, and likes when other pople are lazy too (hence, rivalry with Mr. Gai)


End file.
